Today marks the availability ofCirrent, the new way to connect any smart, connected product to the Internet automatically and securely. Cirrent’s service enables connected products—such as home thermostats and televisions—to connect to the Internet automatically and securely, right out of the box. With more things on the Internet than people, it’s predicted there will be 30 billion devices online by 2020—ranging from sprinkler systems to teddy bears. In fact, approximately 88% of consumer electronic devices shipped in 2015 were Internet-enabled. Before Cirrent, the setup process for most connected products involved multiple steps, confusing passwords, and in more than 20% of cases, consumers failing to connect their “smart” products to the Internet at all (source: Accenture). The difficulty of getting products connected to Wi-Fi is a fundamental barrier to the adoption of connected products, and results in lost sales, high support costs, and high returns. Cirrent addresses these issues head on by making products secure, reliable, and easy to use, which adds directly to the bottom line of the product companies.

Today marks the availability of Cirrent, the new way to connect any smart, connected product to the Internet automatically and securely. Cirrent’s service enables connected products—such as home thermostats and televisions—to connect to the Internet automatically and securely, right out of the box.With more things on the Internet than people, it’s predicted there will be 30 billion devices online by 2020—ranging from sprinkler systems to teddy bears. In fact, approximately 88% of consumer electronic devices shipped in 2015 were Internet-enabled. Before Cirrent, the setup process for most connected products involved multiple steps, confusing passwords, and in more than 20% of cases, consumers failing to connect their “smart” products to the Internet at all (source: Accenture). The difficulty of getting products connected to Wi-Fi is a fundamental barrier to the adoption of connected products, and results in lost sales, high support costs, and high returns. Cirrent addresses these issues head on by making products secure, reliable, and easy to use, which adds directly to the bottom line of the product companies.

Security is set to become the hot button issue in the smart home this year, as more connected devices come online and more hackers attempt to infiltrate corporate and consumer networks through connected gadgets. The FBI even issued a warning about connected home products.The concerns about security and the smart home are well-founded. Several devices from connected cameras to smart home hubs have been hacked. Even light bulbs aren’t immune.

The security of the Internet of Things is fundamentally broken. Developers and manufacturers understandably are eager to get their new hi-tech products to market and unfortunately often overlook security, instead operating under the misapprehension that security-by-obscurity in their proprietary systems will do. The problem is that security researchers, and those with more malicious intent, can almost always extract binary code from the device memory via JTAG or similar in-circuit debugging facilities, or find it online in the form of updates, and reverse engineer via one of the many tools readily available.

The CNET Smart Home is a 58,000-square-foot property filled with all sorts of connected gadgetry. The problem? Not all of those gadgets are compatible with one another.In December, we started taking a closer look at how the free online service IFTTT might be able to help cover those compatibility gaps. Its name an acronym for “if this, then that,” IFTTT lets you craft automation recipes by plugging social-networking services, Web tools and smart home gadgets into its eponymous cause-and-effect formula. You pick the “if this” and the “then that,” and IFTTT does the rest. That comes in handy with gadgets like the Amazon Echo and the Nest Learning Thermostat that don’t work together without help. Both are compatible with IFTTT.